Best time to post on social media in 2025 (by platform)

Pinterest engagement often reflects planning moments. Midday slots (like Mondays at 10 AM or Tuesdays/Fridays at noon) align with work breaks, when users take a pause to gather ideas.

Weekend afternoons (Saturday at 1 PM, Sunday at 4 PM) make sense too because people have time to act on their inspiration, whether that’s cooking, home projects, or event prep.

Pro tip for Pinterest: Focus on SEO over timing

Unlike other platforms, Pinterest prioritizes content through searchability rather than recency. Eileen’s advice is to focus on optimizing your posts for search:

Find out when your audience is online and optimize your posting schedule for maximum engagement. It’s so easy.

How to find your unique best posting times with Hootsuite

Hootsuite offers two powerful tools – Best Time to Publish and Recommended Times in Composer – to help you schedule your posts at the best times for your audience.

Here’s how to take advantage of both.

Always post at the right time

Find out when your audience is online and optimize your posting schedule for maximum engagement. It’s so easy.

Start free 30-day trial

Best Time to Publish

Imagine having your own personal social media strategist whispering in your ear, telling you exactly when to hit that “post” button.

That’s exactly what Hootsuite’s Best Time to Publish feature does for you.

Here’s how it works:

1. Tailored suggestions: Hootsuite analyzes your social media performance over the last 30 days to provide personalized recommendations for the best times to publish your posts.
2. Cross-platform compatibility: Whether you’re managing Facebook Pages, Twitter accounts, Instagram Business profiles, LinkedIn Pages, Pinterest, YouTube, or TikTok, Hootsuite can tell you exactly when your audience is most active on each individual platform.
3. Simple Implementation: Once you have your suggested posting times, scheduling your posts is a breeze. Just hop over to the scheduling tool in Hootsuite and plug in your content for those optimal times.

Recommended Times in Composer

Ever find yourself staring at a blank screen, wondering when on earth to schedule your next post? Say goodbye to that uncertainty with Hootsuite’s Recommended Times in Composer.

Here’s how it can simplify your life:

1. Smart recommendations: When creating or scheduling a post in Composer, simply select “Schedule for later” and let Hootsuite do the heavy lifting. You’ll be presented with recommended times based on your audience engagement data.
2. Continuous improvement: The more you post, the smarter Hootsuite’s recommendations become. As your engagement data grows, so too does the accuracy of your suggested posting times.

Get personalized recommendations for the best time to post on every network and manage your Facebook presence alongside other social channels with Hootsuite. From a single dashboard, you can schedule and publish posts, engage the audience, and measure performance. Try it free today.

What determines your best time to post?

The best time to post on social media comes down to a mix of factors: your audience, your industry, your competitors, time zones, platform algorithms, and more.

Seven variables dictate your optimum posting window:

1. Your unique audience

When determining your personal best time of day to post on social media, think about your audience’s demographics (age, gender, location, interests), as well as their social media habits.

Are they night owls or early birds? Do they work 9-to-5 jobs or have flexible schedules? Knowing these details can give you clues about when they’re most active online.

But don’t stop there — use analytics tools provided by social media platforms to dig deeper.

Look for patterns in when your audience is most engaged. Maybe they’re more active on weekdays during lunch breaks or evenings after dinner.

By tapping into these insights, you can tailor your social media calendar to catch their attention at peak engagement times.

2. Your industry

Different industries have different rhythms when it comes to social media. What works for a fashion brand might not be the best social marketing strategy for a tech startup.

Take a moment to consider the nature of your business and how your audience interacts with similar businesses.

For example, if you’re in the fitness industry, you might find that your followers are most active in the early morning or late afternoon when they’re squeezing in workouts.

On the other hand, if you’re in the entertainment industry, evenings and weekends might be peak times for the most engagement when people are winding down and looking for something to do.

It’s worth keeping an ear to the ground in your industry, whether you learn tactics worth emulating or just spot some pitfalls to avoid. (You might even consider adding publishing schedules to your ongoing social listening endeavors.)

3. The competition

Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing, too. While you don’t want to copy them outright, monitoring their posting schedules can give you insights into when your shared audience is most active.

Take a survey of their high-performing social media posts (or even do a full social competitive analysis) and see what patterns crop up, or perhaps reverse-engineer your competitors’ strategies.

Here at Hootsuite, for instance, we’ve learned to avoid publishing on the hour, because that’s when a lot of brands post.

Instead, we post on the :15 or :45 mark to give our social media content a little breathing room.

Hootsuite’s industry benchmarking tool within Analytics shows you how you stack up to the competition. It’ll even give you personalized tips for how to gain an edge against the leaders in your industry.

4. Time zones

If your followers are scattered across the globe, you’ll need to consider the different time zones they live within. And for enterprise teams, the challenge is to scale

For example, if you’re based in Vancouver but have followers in New York, London, and Tokyo, posting at 9:00 AM local time might mean reaching your East Coast audience bright and early, but missing out on engagement from your international followers who are fast asleep.

At Hootsuite, our channels strive to catch people across North America (PST through EST) by posting in the morning or early afternoon, Pacific Time.

For enterprise teams managing multiple regions, the challenge is scale. Synchronizing campaigns across time zones can quickly get complicated, especially when multiple departments are involved.

To accommodate everyone, it’s a good idea to centralize scheduling on a single platform (like Hootsuite) to target specific time zones, schedule posts in advance, and keep messaging consistent.

5. Platform algorithms

Social media platforms are constantly tweaking their algorithms to deliver the best possible experience for users. While the specifics are often shrouded in mystery, one thing’s for sure: timing matters.

Social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter reward content that generates engagement shortly after it’s posted. That means if you want your post to get maximum visibility, you’ll need to time it just right.

Pay attention to when your audience is most active and aim to publish during those peak periods. But don’t forget about the lifespan of your content either.

While some posts might have immediate impact, others — like evergreen content — can continue to attract engagement over time. Experiment with different posting times and track the results to find what works best for your audience and content strategy.

6. Current events and trends

Social media is a dynamic landscape, shaped by current events, holidays, and trends. Paying attention to what’s happening in the world can help you capitalize on timely opportunities to connect with your audience.

Is there a big industry conference happening? A national holiday or observance? A viral meme or trending topic? Incorporating these events into your posting schedule can help your content feel relevant and timely, increasing the likelihood of engagement.

Just be mindful of the context and tone of your posts — what might be appropriate for one event could be off-putting for another. Keep your finger on the pulse of what’s happening and be ready to adapt your strategy accordingly.

Paige Schmidt, Hootsuite’s Social Engagement Coordinator, has noticed that events and trends are big in 2025.

“There’s a growing demand for relevant and timely content that aligns with pop culture events such as sports events, award shows, and music/movie releases. Brands that plan content around these events or mark them for scheduling stand to capture audience attention effectively,” she says.

7. Experimentation and analysis

At the end of the day, there’s no one-size-fits-all formula for the perfect posting time. That’s why it’s essential to approach your posting strategy with a spirit of experimentation and a willingness to learn.

Test different posting times, frequencies, and types of content to see what resonates most with your audience.

Use analytics tools to track key metrics like engagement, reach, and click-through rates, and use that data to refine your approach over time.

You should also take a look at your top-performing posts from the past, and see what can be mimicked or improved upon there. Take a close look at posts that did the best in terms of:

• Awareness (i.e., posts that have high impressions)
• Engagement (i.e., posts that earned the highest engagement rates)
• Sales/Traffic (i.e.,posts that attracted a lot of clicks)

Next, take a look at what time of day or week you posted successful content, and see what kind of patterns emerge.

💡 Pro tip: Hootsuite Analytics’ Best Time to Publish feature pulls your unique posting history automatically, without any data-crunching, and suggests times to post in order to maximize your ROI.

Remember, social media is a constantly evolving landscape, so be prepared to adapt and iterate as you go.

FAQ: Best time to post on social media

Is it better to post in the morning or evening on social media?

It depends on the platform and your audience. For platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, mornings are strongest because users check in as part of their daily routines. But on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, evenings tend to drive higher engagement as people shift into personal time.

What factors determine the best time to post on social media?

Your audience, industry, competitors, time zones, and platform algorithms all play a role. Tracking your own analytics is the most reliable way to pinpoint when your audience is actually online and ready to engage.

Does the algorithm care about when I post?

Yes. Most platforms reward posts that get engagement soon after publishing. Posting at peak times increases your chances of showing up in feeds, though evergreen content can perform long after it’s posted.

Do best posting times vary by industry?

Absolutely! For example, a fitness brand may see stronger results early in the morning or late in the day, while entertainment brands often find their audiences more active in the evenings. Industry rhythms are an important layer to consider alongside platform trends.

How often should we revisit our posting time strategy?

It’s a good idea to revisit your posting time strategy once or twice a year, or whenever something big happens, like an algorithm update, a shift in audience behavior, or if you’re planning to ramp up spend on a particular channel.

Should my team post at the same time across every platform?

Not necessarily. Each platform has its own user behavior patterns, so what works on LinkedIn may not work on TikTok. A smarter approach is to align posting times with each platform’s peak activity (while keeping overall campaign timing consistent across your channels). Hootsuite can recommend unique best times to post per platform for your specific audience.

How does posting at the right time fit into my larger social media strategy?

Timing is a small detail that can make a big difference. It helps you maximize engagement, make the most of your content budget, and keep your brand visible when your audience is actually paying attention.

Get personalized recommendations for the best time to post on every network and manage your social media presence with Hootsuite. From a single dashboard, you can schedule and publish posts, engage the audience, and measure performance. Try it free today.